As the AI model wars continue, Anthropic has released the latest version of its mid-tier model, Sonnet. It is said to be much faster (and much cheaper) than its predecessor.
Labs describes Sonnet 5.5 as the perfect assistant for everyday tasks such as coding and creating office documents.
5.5’s predecessor, Sonnet 5, was announced about three months ago. At the time, the selling point of this model was efficient agent deployment, or the ability to run agents at a lower cost than competitors.
The 5.5’s biggest selling point, on the other hand, is speed. Anthropic claims that Sonnet 5.5 is 30% faster than its predecessor, with significantly slower token writing speeds.
In the Anthropic hierarchy model, Sonnet is not as powerful as the Opus model, but it is more agile and may be more useful in certain situations. In particular, in Anthropic’s benchmarks, Sonnet 5.5 performs better than Opus 5.5 in agent coding. This may be because multiple agents can be generated without exceeding the cost limit.
Sonnet 5.5 is also said to have significant cyber capabilities, with the company claiming it has “comparable” cyber capabilities to Opus 5. As a result, Anthropic says the 5.5 is the first Sonnet model to receive the same cyber protection measures that apply to Fable and Opus.
The company also plans to release a new version of Haiku (the smallest model) in the coming weeks, but hasn’t given a specific date for when that will happen.
Last year saw a flurry of new models released from major AI labs. Just last week, OpenAI released a number of new models, including enhanced versions of Sol and Luna, as well as mid-tier and budget-friendly models. Meta also announced new models that enhance upcoming features related to smart glasses.
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